Retirement Plans Blog

Most of our readers know that various penalties may be imposed for failure to file returns or information statements on a timely basis with either the IRS or the Department of Labor (DOL), the principal regulators of retirement and welfare benefit ...
[Read more] about Mishandling And Backdating ERISA Benefit Plans: Crime And Punishment

The training and development of contract service providers and pension consultants usually includes a heavy emphasis on checklists, testing, compliance calendars and the satisfaction of various filing or disclosure deadlines. However, as this article ...
[Read more] about The Value Enhanced Pension Practitioner: From Good To Great In Six Steps

Potential benefit problems in connection with expense-sharing arrangements… This article highlights some of the risks and potential problems for the retirement plans (and other employee benefits) of professionals who participate in invalid or ...
[Read more] about Office Expense-Sharing Arrangements And Your Retirement Plan!

Retirement plan management responsibilities for tasks like Form 5500 filings are often a team effort. In the past we've written about the roles of your in-house team (see Make Sure Your 'In-House' Benefits People Understand Their Responsibility And ...
[Read more] about Form 5500 And Other Responsibilities: Do You Understand Your CPA’s And TPA’s Roles?

Like an ink stain on otherwise clean white carpet, a scrivener's error is a problem, an embarrassment, begging for attention. The current dilemma facing plan sponsors and their advisers is what to do with them? Should, or must, they be professionally ...
[Read more] about Scrivener’s Errors – What To Do?

Some HR managers hate this time of year because January through March is when they're forced to tell their company's highly compensated employees (HCEs) that they'll be refunded a portion of last year's deferrals because – once again – the 401(k) ...
[Read more] about Improving 401(k) Testing: Don’t Shoot The Messenger